The Perfect Cookie
by MuffinHTF
Summary: When Muffin achieves her dreams and creates the perfect cookie, all seems to go well. But what happens when she suddenly has a town of cookie crazed monsters on her paws?
1. Prolouge

**As a newbie to the fanfiction world, two stories at once seems to be pushing it a little, I know. But I couldn't help writing a story starring my O.C. Muffin.**

**And yes, you read right, I'm accepting O.C.'s! Just fill out the little form thingie at the bottom and send it in the reviews! I'm not sure how many I'll be taking, I guess it's up to how many friends Muffin wants.**

**Muffin: ALL the friends!**

**We'll see...**

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**The Perfect Cookie**

_*****Prologue*****_

Muffin the Fox sat at the register of her small bakery. The walls were a soft blue color; tall shelves lined two of the walls and were filled with cookies, cakes, muffins, pies, bread, and anything else you could possibly imagine. The door to the bakery was thick glass, and two, large bay windows sat on each side of the entrance. Beneath the register, a small, glass protected shelf held more seasonal fall desserts such as pumpkin pies and spice rolls. Above the counter, two well-sized signs hung from the ceiling, one read "Muffin's Bakery" while the other listed the prices for every single type of baked good in the entire store.  
Muffin herself sat deep in thought, leaning against the counter on her elbows. Her fur was a dark maroon color, her tail slightly darker with a tan tip. A large cookie shaped barrette was pinned to her right ear, the weight of is always causing the ear to bend down slightly. She wore a mauve shirt which portrayed a chocolate chip muffin in the center. Muffin sighed, she hadn't had a customer yet today and it was nearly lunch time. Her shelves were jam packed with so many sweets that they risked toppling to the ground, so Muffin couldn't even occupy herself with baking. Much known to the rest of Happy Tree Town, Muffin was a very skilled baker. She had won numerous awards for her skills in the past, but the high-speed life of competition baking was too much for the fox, so she moved to Happy Tree Town, where she happily supplied the residents with her famous baked goods. She could bake anything she set her mind to. In fact, she doubted there was anything she hadn't already baked. Except, perhaps, one thing.

_The perfect cookie._

Lately, this thought had been disturbing Muffin greatly. If she could bake anything, which she had no doubt she could, then why couldn't she bake the perfect cookie? A cookie that now matter how many times or how many you ate, the taste never got old. A cookie that satisfied the tastes of every Tree Friend and O.C. in town. Was that even possible? _Of_ _course it was how couldn't it be_? Muffin squealed in delight as she finally made up her mind: She would create a cookie so unbelievably delicious that it would melt Cro-Marmot right out of his ice block! She quickly got to work running around her bakery, collecting every ingredient and cook book she could find and locked herself in the large kitchen in the far back of the bakery. She would need all her skills to accomplish this and couldn't risk a stupid blue moose coming in and killing her and destroying everything in her kitchen. Sure she would just regenerate the next day, but it would completely throw her off her baking mojo.

Sheet after sheet of paper, every cook book researched, and three pens completely out of ink and lay useless on the flour stained floor. Muffin worked through the night, into the dawn, and beyond that. She worked non-stop, going through dozens and dozens of rejected cookie expirements and recipes littered the floor by the hundreds. She didn't stop, not for food, water, sleep, or even her customers. Finally, after a full seven and a half days of non-stop baking and testing, Muffin dropped to the floor, her body shutting down after lack of sleep, food, and water. As she lay dead on the floor, in her cold, dark red paw, she clenched a small, stained piece of paper.

Little did she know how much hell that little piece of paper would soon cause.

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**Alright I know what you're thinking, "The perfect cookie, really? How entertaining could that possibly be?" **

**Well keep your pants on and just wait for chapter one, ok? Cheezits...**

**Muffin: The form! Quickly!**

**Oh, right right! Here's the O.C. form, the more detailed the better! I can't wait for your entries!**

**Name:**

**Gender:**

**Appearence:**

**Bio/Backstory:**

**Personality:**

**Friends:**

**Enemies:**

**Abilities/Powers:**

**Love intrests?:**

**Other: **

**Opinion on cookies:**

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**Me: Was that last question really needed?**

**Muffin: Yes it was needed! Cookies are serious stuff! Besides, it's a better question than "Love interests". Blech.**

**Don't pretend like _you_ don't have a love interest! Anyways, dear readers, critics and those few trolls, send in your O.C.'s pronto! I want to work on this story! Sniffles' Invention may slow down a little, just a heads up.**


	2. Chapter 1: New and Old Friends

***Sitting at my computer with a tub of gummy bears* **

**Hey everyone, first of all, I'd like to thank everyone who submitted their OC's! The characters mentioned in this chapter will be sort of the main characters, the others will have several smaller parts. Thanks again! I loved all the entries! I may even work TROLL's entry into this. (And I _knew_ there were trolls out there!)**

**Second of all, *eats a gummy bear*, after humiliating myself horribly twice in one day, my paranoid meter has skyrocketed and I'm scared I may have gotten some of the OC's personalities wrong and-**

**Muffin: Are you done yet? Let's get on with the story! Enjoy!**

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Muffin woke with a start. She jolted upright in her plush bed, and panted heavily. She tried to grasp her thoughts but each memory slipped away as soon as she could grab a hold of it. _I-I was baking. A lot…..and…ugh…where am I? My house…my room? But I was in my bakery…I must have died…ugh…I need hot cocoa…._ Muffin thought as she threw back her dessert patterned comforter and stumbled out of her bed, knocking a water bottle over on her night stand. She suddenly felt a crinkle of paper in her left paw. Muffin unclenched her paw and unfolded the messy piece of paper. It struck her like a bolt of lightning. _THE PERFECT COOKIE!_ She screamed in her mind. Her memory came flooding back as she remembered: She had been into her seventh day of non-stop baking and she had dropped dead from exhaustion…or was it lack of water? Either way, she had died before she could finish the complete recipe for the perfect cookie. The stained, crumpled piece of paper held 99% of the requirements needed to bake her cookie, but the last ingredient was illegible. Her hands must have been shaking horribly from fatigue. The maroon fox squealed in delight, all she needed was one more ingredient and her life long achievement will be fulfilled! She just needed to-

_KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!_

Three brisk, hyper knocks at her door interrupted her thoughts and Muffin ran quickly downstairs of her tree shaped home. She opened the door and to her joy saw one of her good friends, Komei. Komei was a light blonde female cat, with simple but pretty purple and blue stripes around her cheeks and eyes. Her ears were not that of a normal cat, they were large enough to be compared to Muffin's fox ears and had the cutest tufts of white at the tips of them. She wore her usual green scarf which complemented her emerald eyes. Her belly was white and her tail also, but tipped with bright green.  
Komei visited Muffin's Bakery often and Muffin enjoyed listening to her raves about the latest mystery book she'd read.

"Komei! How've you been?" Muffin mumbled. Komei wore a look of disapproval and worry.

"I could say the same to you! Your bakery has been closed all week and no one could find you! Even Splendid was trying to find you" Komei said her voice heavy with concern.

"Ah, well, I was um…camping." Muffin quickly made up, she didn't want her new recipe out in the open just yet. Komei wasn't convinced, but she surprised Muffin with a sweet laugh.

"Muffin, you're the worst lier I know! C'mon, out with it! I won't take no for an answer! I'll get my detective hat if I need to!"

"Komei, I'm sorry, I can't tell you right now. I'll make up for it with a fresh batch of chocolate chip muffins, ok?" This seemed to satisfy the striped cat and she and Muffin made their way next door to the bakery with the cookie recipe tucked safely in Muffin's bushy tail. Her bakery was a disaster, ingredients were sprawled across the kitchen and her register had been stripped of cash. No doubt Lifty and Shifty had taken advantage of Muffin's sudden death and stolen every penny, along with a few cakes. Komei stood munching on a chocolate chip muffin and looked at Muffin curiously. The maroon fox gave an awkward smile and slipped into the back room of the kitchen. She pulled out the wrinkled paper from her wiry tail fur and read over the ingredients. Everything in her pantry was either gone, or sprawled across the floor…except for one thing: A vial of a dark blue liquid that she had swiped from Sniffles' laboratory a while back. She never meant to steal the vial, but curiosity had gotten the better of her. The vial just seemed so fascinating, plus, Sniffles' had never mentioned the missing vial so she figured it wasn't important to him. She turned it around in her paw, it read: PROJECT 00733. It was the only usable ingredient left in the whole bakery, so it had to be the one missing from her recipe.

She hated having to resort to this, being the stubborn fox she was, but Muffin had no choice but to ask her cat friend for the rest of the ingredients, as she was cashless and her kitchen was empty. But as Muffin stepped out of the back room, she screamed in shock. Komei lay face down on the kitchen floor, with a pool of crimson blood pooling around her. A blender lay tipped over near the cat, still spinning, and had a blended mixture of skin, fur, and blood swirling around in it. A large knife lay embedded into the back of her friend's skull. From what Muffin could gather, Komei's tail had gotten caught in the blender, causing it to fall and turn on, ripping off her tail and most of the skin on her back. She then must have fallen against the supplies counter, causing the large knife to fall from its hook and embed itself into Komei's skull. Muffin's vision went blurry as she tried desperately to keep herself from vomiting. She knew the striped cat would regenerate the next day, but it was still horrific seeing her friends die in such ways. Komei was always so cheerful too, she didn't deserve it.

Luck was on Muffin's side for the rest of the day. Nutty had made a stop in the bakery and completely emptied two whole shelves of cakes and cookies, after paying Muffin of course. Where the sugar-high squirrel got that money, Muffin didn't know but she didn't think too long on the subject. After a major shopping trip in town, three brushes with death, and witnessing Cuddles getting impaled by a metal pole. Muffin made it back to her bakery, arms loaded with flour, sugar, milk, oil, eggs, and all other sorts of ingredients. As she was preparing the necessary things for her recipe, the bell attached to the bakery entrance jingled once again.  
Muffin glanced out from her kitchen and was shocked to see Stripes. Stripes was an orange tiger who wore a ranger hat, occasionally when she was on duty she wore a police uniform, but today must have been her day off. Muffin had seen Stripes around town and had even tried making conversation, but Stripes didn't seem too interested in her friendship. Giggles and Petunia had loads of gossip about her; like that she was the daughter of a dictator. But Muffin wasn't one to believe such rumors so easily. Generally the tomboy of the town, Muffin had respect for her, most of the girls in this town always talked about clothes and boys and shopping. Muffin didn't consider herself a tomboy like Stripes or a girly girl like Giggles, she thought of herself as a little mix of both. Other than respect for the orange tiger, Muffin was full on afraid of Stripes, after witnessing what happened to Toothy after he stole her ranger hat as a prank last week.

"Hey…Muffin, right? I'm Stripes." She said simply, approaching the counter and glancing at the price menu.

"Nice to meet you, Stripes. Uh...I've heard a lot about you from around town." Muffin said awkwardly, Stripes raised an eyebrow but said nothing, Muffin continued, "Er…what can I get you?" Stripes considered for a moment, but right as she was about to speak, a buzzer went off in the kitchen. Muffin flinched, surprising herself, she was so used to buzzers by now.

"Oh! Excuse me, I need to get that!" Muffin felt even more awkward as she rushed to the back of the bakery. The buzzer had marked that the oven was pre-heated and Muffin pulled a tray of dropped cookies from the refrigerator. Uncorking the vial PROJECT 00733 carefully, she placed a drop of liquid onto the center of each cookie. She even more carefully placed the tray into the red-hot oven and setting the timer.

"Whatcha got there?" A voice said. Muffin jumped and turned to see that Stripes had wandered into the kitchen. The tiger pointed to the half full vial of blue liquid.

"Er…just experimenting with cookies, I found this vial in the back room…" Muffin trailed off, hoping Stripes would get the message and not push farther. Nope.

"A vial, huh? What's in it? Poison? What are you trying to do?"

"What! No! I-"

_Ding-g-g. _The door bell rang again and Muffin took the opportunity to run to the front counter, leaving Stripes with a suspicious look in the kitchen. Two customers this time, and oddly enough, two more OC's, yet this didn't surprise the fox as mostly OC's came to her bakery anyway. Muffin recognized one as Samiee, an orange fox with white on his paws, ears, tail and belly. He wore his usual newsboy cap with a long black scarf and British style glasses. Two miniature fangs stuck out of his mouth, but not in a creepy sort of way. Muffin wasn't exactly fond of him, considering he was rivals with her best friend (and sort-of crush), Sniffles, but he wasn't too bad.  
The other OC Muffin recognized as Cellia, a pink flying squirrel with a purple bow on her right ear next to her two pink pig tails. Two hair pieces covered the tops of her eyes. She was, like her cousin Splendid, a superhero, sharing many of the same superpowers. Now, Muffin and Splendid were…enemies. Bitter enemies. Ever since Splendid nearly destroyed her bakery after insulting her cookies while looking for a KryptoNut stone (which he never found), Muffin had refused to sell anything to him. This, however, didn't affect her thoughts of Cellia; she was nice enough and had never disrespected the fine art of cookie baking like Splendid had.

"Hey Cellia, hey Samiee, what can I do for ya?" Muffin smiled as the duo walked up to the counter. Stripes walked out of the kitchen and greeted Cellia and Samiee cheerfully.

"Hey guys, what are you doing here?" Stripes said.

"Um…buying cookies, this _is_ a bakery, Stripes." Samiee said with a laugh. Stripes shot him a nasty look.

"Well it just so happens, Muffin here is baking a fresh batch of cookies." Stripes said slyly. Muffin went pale.

"W-well I mean…they're just experiment cookies, I-I'm not selling them just yet…" Muffin stuttered.

"Experiment cookies? Well, you'll need a taste tester, right? Who better than us?" Cellia said with a bright smile. Muffin thought this over for a minute and realized that she certainly wasn't going to get these guys to leave anytime soon, so she might as well try to be a good host.

"Well, I guess you guys could stay for a while, just don't go around dying in my kitchen, I just finished cleaning up the rest of Komei." Muffin said, feeling awkward again.

"Curiosity killed the cat?" Samiee chuckled. Stripes shot him another look and Cellia rolled her eyes.

For the next half hour, Cellia, Stripes, and Samiee stood in the front of the bakery munching on blueberry muffins, while Muffin was pacing in her kitchen, trying desperately to find a way out of this.

_I've never shared my cookie creations with anyone without me testing them first! I'm not even really sure that this recipe really is the perfect cookie! W-what if the cookies are horrible a-and they tell the whole town? I'll lose all my business! O-or, what if the cookies are the perfect cookies, and one of them steal the recipe? You can never trust anyone in the world of baking, just like that time when Bamboo stole my secret muffin recipe and got on the cover of Cake Weekly. Or the time when-_

_BRINNNNNNG!_

Cellia flew into the kitchen, accidently knocking the flimsy wooden, swinging door off it's hindges.

"Was that the oven timer? Well c'mon! Let's taste those cookies, I'm _starving_!" Cellia exclaimed, looking eagerly at Muffin, who was still recovering from being jolted out of her thoughts so suddenly. Stripes and Samiee stepped over the destroyed door and entered the kitchen, the smell of freshly baked cookies filling the air. Muffin gulped and shakily slipped on her trusty oven mitts.

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***jams ten gummy bears into mouth* There's chapter one! Forgive me if it's boring, I assure you this chapter was mainly for introducing main characters and setting up the plot line. Chapter 2 will be much more action-y indeed.**

***more gummy bears* Ah yes, and to the creators that submitted thier OC's: Please, please, PLEASE tell me if anybody's personalities need tweeking, I'm getting paranoid over here...*gummy bears***

**Sorry Komei died so early, she will be back soon enough!*butt load of gummy bears***

**Muffin: Reviews are always greatly appreciated!**


	3. Chapter 2: PROJECT 00733

**Chapter 2! Enjoy!**

**Muffin: What, none of your "witty" comments for the readers?**

**No, now get back to your story.**

**Muffin: fine..**

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Muffin eased the metal tray out of the oven and a strong wave of cookie scented air washed over the bakery. The cookies looked…odd. In fact, very odd, the liquid from PROJECT 00733 had spread across the cookies, turning them an ominous blue-violet color. They almost seemed to glow and kind of looked…well, pretty. Muffin suddenly remembered something very crucial to baking cookies and broke out in a smile of relief.

"Well, sorry guys, but these cookies will have to cool for a half hour or so before any of you can eat them." Muffin tried to sound disappointed.

"Oh, that's not a problem! Here!" Cellia grinned and breathed a small ice beam at the bottom of the cookie tray, cooling the cookies to a perfect temperature. Muffin sighed and reluctantly transferred the cookies onto a small white plate. Before the maroon fox could react, an orange paw shot out and snatched a glowing cookie from the plate. Samiee then jammed half of the blue cookie into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. After he swallowed, he had a look of shock on his face, and Muffin went pale again.

"T-this tastes amazing! What did you put in that? That had to be one of the best cookies I've ever had!" Samiee exclaimed as he stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth, "Seriously, what did you do to make it glow like tha…." Samiee's voice trailed off suddenly and his arms fell limply to his sides.

"Samiee? Are you ok? Samiee? Samiee?" Stripes waved a paw in front of the orange fox's face, but his eyes remained unmoving. Samiee's small black pupils suddenly enlarged rapidly to the point where you could hardly see any white. His eyes lost all the typical, friendly gleam and became spaced out and cloudy. He continued to stare ahead, looking past everyone, as thick, burly claws emerged from his paws. A faint growl escaped his lips as he moved his large, black eyes onto the nearest person: Muffin. Muffin felt an icy wave shoot down her spine and her tail fur ruffle, _this can't be good_. Without warning, the orange fox leapt at Muffin, locking his clawed hands around her throat. Muffin choked out a small yelp and fell to the floor, desperately scratching at the paws that were restricting her breathing and rabbit-kicking the fox against his stomach. A strange, psychotic growl came from the back of Samiee's throat as he dug his curved claws into Muffin's exposed neck, nearly missing her jugular. Stripes leapt onto Samiee's back and began trying to trap him in a headlock, while Cellia was attempting to pry his new, strange claws from Muffin's neck but with no avail. Samiee let out a horrific roar that seemed to echo around the bakery. Blood began to trickle out of the baker's neck and stain her maroon fur, while Stripes finally had Samiee in a tight headlock. Cellia had to use all her super strength to pry the claws from the shredded neck and Stripes was able to wrestle the orange fox to the ground and hold him still. A pair of glasses lay shattered several feet away. Muffin sputtered and began to cough up blood, her neck had been ripped to shreds but surprisingly, her jugular vein remained intact.  
Muffin's vision became blurry and disoriented as she stared up at the dimming, checkered ceiling. The last thing she saw was a blurred, pink face that was shouting something. Everything slowly began to grow black. She swooned.

"Muffin! Wake up! Stripes, come here, I think she's coming to."

"I would if I could, Cellia, but I'm trying….to tie this…rope! There!"

"ROOOARRR!"

Muffin wearily opened her eyes and shut them quickly against the bright light. She peeked through her eye lids again and slowly became used to the white, reflecting tiles of the ceiling. It took quite a few moments to comprehend what she was seeing. Cellia and Stripes were at her sides, looking at her with extreme concern. Muffin slowly sat up and rubbed her head, her paw traveling down to her now bandaged neck and she flinched horribly. White-hot, searing pain shot across her back and Muffin had to bite her tongue to keep herself from screaming. Looking across the room, she spotted Samiee bound up in the far corner, ropes were tied by the layers onto the orange fox's hands and feet and several other ropes were wrapped around his waist and tied to various tables around the kitchen. His pupils were still large and black, with small strips of white circling them. Bloodcurdling, muffled roars could be heard from behind Samiee's gag, which happened to be one of Muffin's favorite oven mitts.

"Urg…w-what happened…? Did I die…?" Muffin mumbled, rubbing her head and realizing her barrette was missing.

"Very nearly! Had me scared for a moment." Stripes replied. "But what the heck happened to Samiee? He's still…well…_that!_" She pointed at the raging monster thrashing in the corner, which was gnawing on the oven mitt in his mouth. Muffin collected her thoughts quickly and raced around her mind for an answer. "I-I don't know…" Muffin coughed up some blood as she used to the wall as balance as she got to her feet.

"Well, Samiee isn't one to just tear up someone's throat for no reason, or randomly sprout claws and weird eyes; it had to have been that cookie." Cellia said, "What did you put in it?"

"I-I'm not sure _exactly _what I put in it." Muffin half-lied, but Cellia and Stripes didn't catch it. Samiee emitted another series of menacing growls and thrashed more against his bonds. Stripes thought for a moment and said, "Well…Maybe someone else in town can figure it out. Let's take him to Sniffles."

"Bring Samiee to be treated by Sniffles?" Cellia chuckled, "I'm sure he'll like _that." _

"Cellia, this is serious, for all we know Samiee could stay like this forever!" Stripes said, her voice tinted with concern. Soon, Muffin, Stripes, Cellia and Samiee (who was now tied from the neck down in ropes) were rushing out of the bakery in search of the nerdy anteater. Cellia was carrying the struggling orange fox as she glided through the air and Muffin had to stop every few minutes to cough up blood. Back in the bakery, the tray of glowing cookies still sat on the counter, along with a shattered pair of black rimmed glasses on of the floor near a large cookie barrette.

"Hmm….This is indeed peculiar. How long has he been like this?" Sniffles asked as he peered into Samiee's eyes with a magnifying glass, dodging the fox's snapping jaws. The group stood in Sniffles' laboratory in his metallic tree house and looked at Sniffles anxiously.

"It's had to have been an hour or so now, hasn't it?" Stripes said, Cellia and Muffin nodded in agreement. Sniffles quickly tightened the straps on the table against Samiee's wrists and ankles as the fox lashed out in another attempt to bite the anteater head off.

"Now, Muffin, you mentioned that he began acting in this manner after he consumed a cookie you gave him?" Sniffles asked. Muffin nodded rapidly, staring at the monstrous form of Sammie strapped to the lab table.

"Did you use anything different from your normal baking in the cookie you gave him?" The anteater continued as he tried to get a good look at Samiee's claws.

"W-well yes…." Muffin said, feeling the tips of her ears grow hot; she didn't like the idea of Sniffles discovering she had taken the chemical from his lab.

"What was it?" Sniffles asked, struggling to keep Samiee's paw still. Muffin stared at the floor sheepishly, feeling her face heat up. "Err…P-PROJECT 00733…" She muttered. Sniffles dropped his magnifying glass, causing it to shatter against the floor. He turned to Muffin with a horrorstruck face. Cellia and Stripes kept glancing from Samiee to Sniffles waiting anxiously for an explanation.

"W-what? PROJECT 00733?" Sniffles exclaimed, "W-where did you get that? I lost that experiment ages ago!" Muffin whimpered and felt her face grow warmer, her awkwardness returning.

"I-It was never _lost_ technically." Muffin began, her voice small, "I-I took it, a-and it's been in my kitchen ever since, I-I couldn't help it….I'm really sorry, Sniffles…"

"Y-you _stole _it from me?" Sniffles said in a loud whisper, he looked hurt. Stripes and Cellia stared at Muffin with astonishment. Muffin's ears folded flat as she stared at her feet, tears pricking the back of her eyes. Sniffles look of shock quickly turned in to anger and disappointment, but he said nothing more and turned back to Samiee, who had slightly loosened a strap on his wrist and was growling loudly.

"What's PROJECT 00733?" Cellia finally broke the silence. Sniffles sighed and turned to the pink flying squirrel, "It's a specially formulated chemical enhancing certain parts in a person's chromosomes. I had tested the solution on a few lab mice, hoping to increase their senses but something went wrong, causing the mice to grow more _wild_ than usual. I was planning on fixing the formula but I never got around to it, and by the time I did, it had disappeared. I assumed I had simply misplaced it." Sniffles glanced quickly at Muffin then back to Cellia, "It must have had similar effects on Samiee, causing him to lash out and attack."

"Well, is there an antidote?" Stripes asked. Sniffles shook his head sadly, "No, not yet, but if you bring me the rest of those cookies, I may be able to come up with one. But until then, the only thing I can do to Samiee is tranquilize him."

"Wait, Muffin, you…you locked the bakery right?" Cellia asked. Muffin's face turned petrified.

"Uh oh."

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**Samiee has turned into...whatever that is... and there's a batch of poison cookies on the loose! What else could possibly go wrong?**

** Muffin: The fact that Sniffles hates me now...**

**I'm sure he doesn't _hate_ you.**

**Muffin: ...Reviews are greatly appreciated...**


	4. Cookie Monsters

**Muffin: Jamie is lost somewhere in a mountain of homework so I'll be introducing this! **

**Me: *from a distance* What did I say about using my name!**

**Muffin: Anyways! Enjoy Chapter 3!**

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"GREAT! That's just _perfect!_" Stripes shouted as she, Muffin, and Cellia were running as fast as they could back to Muffin's Bakery, "We have a monster Samiee tied up in Sniffles' house and a bunch of poison cookies just sitting out for anyone to take!"

"No need for sarcasm, Stripes. Maybe the cookies haven't been touched." Cellia argued as she soared through the air.

"Haven't been touched? Not with Shifty and Lifty running around!" Stripes yelled back. Muffin remained silent, that look on Sniffles face kept returning to her thoughts. She'd expected Sniffles to yell at her or scold her or something, but that look of extreme disappointment, it was eating its way into Muffin mind. Why exactly, she didn't know. Sniffles had been angry with her many times for knocking over his inventions or accidently letting the raccoon twins rob his laboratory that one time, but nothing had hit Muffin as hard as that look Sniffles had given her. Muffin shook her head and caused herself to focus. _I need to focus on those cookies. Someone could get hurt._ Muffin laughed as she thought this, considering people died in this town everyday but for some odd reason came back the next morning. But even so, these "perfect cookies" Muffin had made could turn more people into black-eyed monsters and maybe even make them stay like that forever. Muffin's thoughts were interrupted by and ear-splitting scream, Cellia nearly fell out of the air due to her super-sensitive hearing.

"Was that...Giggles?" Muffin asked, turning her head.

"There's no time! We need to get those cookies and we can't make annoying little side trips for annoying little chipmunks." Stripes scowled.

"We don't need to make a side trip, look!" Cellia said, horrified. Muffin and Stripes came to a halt and looked in the direction Cellia was pointing. Giggles was on the ground, flailing and screaming violently as a neon green figure was ripping off her skin in large chunks and clawing into her stomach.

"OH MY GOD IS THAT NUTTY?" Muffin screamed, coughing up another pool of blood. And indeed it was, the neon green figure that was now tearing off Giggles' ears was the hyperactive green squirrel, Nutty. Blood was smeared across his fur and most of the candy usually stuck to his fur had been knocked off. Giggles had stopped moving soon after Nutty had disemboweled her and Nutty slowly rose from the pink and red body and looked over to the trio who were staring at him in shock. His eyes were pitch black, with small bands of white at the edges and his hands had formed massive, curved claws. He gave a horrific scream tinted by a few insane giggles and charged at the group. Stripes was first to react and grabbed Nutty by the wrist as soon as he got close enough, Stripes was then able to twist around and flip the squirrel over her shoulder. Nutty leapt to his feet as if nothing had happened and leapt for Stripes' throat, but the orange tiger simply ducked under his out stretched hands and struck Nutty right in the stomach with her fist. Nutty doubled over and Cellia was able to fly down and pin him to the ground. Muffin just stood there with a look of shock but soon realized this wasn't all that farfetched, Nutty was a regular customer of hers and wouldn't resist stealing a cookie or two when no one was around. But then…did that mean more were gone? Nutty was flailing and clawing at Cellia's paws but couldn't break skin.

"What do we do with him?" Cellia asked. Stripes suggested simply killing him and Muffin suggested taking him to Sniffles. It ended up with Cellia placing the monster Nutty high in a tree and leaving him to fend for himself. They ran off with Nutty's insane screams still in their ears. The group fearfully made it back to the bakery and looked for the plate of cookies. Well, there was a plate at least, but all that was left of the cookies were blue, glowing crumbs.

"Damn it! They could be anywhere by now!" Muffin yelled, throwing the plate on the ground, letting it break to pieces. She scooped up her cookie barrette and pinned it to her right ear. Anger seemed to have gotten the better of Stripes as she punched a hole through the nearest wall and Cellia looked like she could strangle someone. Muffin ran to the back of the bakery and took the vial marked PROJECT 00733 from the counter and placed it carefully into the fur of her fox tail. Returning to the front of the bakery she was met by angry glares from Cellia and Stripes.

"You just _had_ to bake those cookies, didn't you? Well now half of the town could be monsters by now!" Stripes yelled, walking up to Muffin with her hands clenched in fists. Cellia opened her mouth to scold Muffin as well but the bell on the bakery door dinged and a surprised looking figure walked in. It was Shatter. Shatter was a light blue cat with orange stripes and had toxic purple eyes. A tuft of fur had been styled in a way that covered her left eye. She wore a black short sleeve shirt that said "Come to the Dark Side We Have Cookies" (Muffin wasn't exactly fond of this shirt) and was one of the few people in town that wore pants, hers were gray skinny jeans and were accompanied by blue high-top converse shoes. She wore a marvel deadpool symbol necklace.

"Whoa, what's going on here?" Shatter said as she walked through the door.

"Sorry, Shatter, the bakery is closed today." Muffin said simply. Shatter looked disappointed, "Aw man, I was hoping to get one of those weird glowing cookies you were giving out earlier…" She said.

"Glowing cookies? Where did you see them?" Cellia asked as she floated down to the floor.

"In town of course!" Shatter smiled mischievously.

"Who had them?" Muffin yelled franticly. Shatter simply shrugged and turned to walk out the door but was intercepted at the door by Stripes, who didn't look very happy at all.

"Oh no you don't, we need all the help we can get to find those cookies! Tell us who had them!" Stripes growled. If Shatter was afraid of Stripes, she didn't show it, but stayed put.

"I think Cuddles had one….and the raccoon twins each had one…oh, and Flippy had one too." She began, concentrating hard. Muffin went pale at the mention of Flippy's name, if he ate a cookie, who knows what could happen. Shatter continued, "…That's all I can remember, sorry." Shatter shrugged again and tried to push past Stripes to get out the door but to no avail.

"Nope, you're still going to help us." Stripes said.

"But whyyyyy!" Shatter complained.

"Because those cookies are going to turn everyone into monsters, Samiee and Nutty are already affected and Giggles has been killed because of it!" Muffin said.

"Good! I didn't like Giggles anyway!" Shatter argued.

"Guys shut up! We have to think!" Cellia shouted, "Let's brainstorm where each cookie might possibly be and break up into grou-"

_CRASH!_

Everyone jumped as the large window at the front of the bakery exploded, and before anyone could react, Shatter was pinned against the wall, a clawed hand jammed through her chest. Muffin very nearly screamed when she saw that the attacker was none other than Komei the cat, one of her good friends, her eyes pitch black. Blood began to trickle out of the wound and the monster Komei ripped her claw back out of the blue cat's chest, taking her heart with her. Shatter gurgled and went wide-eyed at the sight of her heart outside her body, she attempted to reach for her weapons but all she could do was gurgle and fall to the floor. Blood began to pool around the bakery floor and drip out of Shatter's gaping mouth as her toxic colored eyes turned dim and cloudy. Komei turned to the rest of the group with Shatter's heart still in her hand. They stared each other down for only a few seconds before the monster cat lunged at them. Muffin was able to brace herself before once again being knocked to the ground by a kill-frenzy monster. Clawed hands wrapped around the maroon fox's neck and a stinging pain echoed through her body. Before Komei's claws could rip through Muffin's bandages, the fox swung her left fist upwards and clocked the cat right in the jaw bone, dislocating it and sending Komei flying into the wall, knocking her out. Muffin laid there for a few seconds, staring at her left paw, she had no idea she could do that! Stripes and Cellia stood there too, looking from the dead Shatter, to the unconscious monster Komei, and back to the panting Muffin in shock.

"Well damn, so much for Shatter's help." Stripes said as she examined the blue cat's corpse. Muffin got up from the floor, rubbing her tender neck. "I…How did I do that?"

"You subconsciously learned from the last time that happened." Cellia said, binding Komei with ropes.

"No time for that! We have to get back to Sniffles house so we can heal Samiee!"

"Fine, fine, let's go before poor Komei wakes up…" Muffin said as Stripes and Cellia ran (flew) out of the bakery. Muffin cast a last look at tied up Komei and the dead Shatter and ran out of her bakery after the tiger and flying squirrel.

They reached Sniffles' house only a few minutes after sunset. Strangely though, there were no lights on in the metallic tree house.

"Did Lumpy knock out the power again?" Cellia asked, looking around at the other houses but their lights were all on. Muffin opened the door and stepped into the metal house, but there was no sign of the periwinkle anteater. The strong, metallic smell of blood was in the air.

"Sniffles! Where are you, we can't see a thing!" Muffin yelled out.

"_Shhhh!" _A voice whispered harshly. It was coming from the far right corner of the room.

"Sniffles, is that you?" Cellia asked, squinting her eyes in the darkness.

"Yes, now be _quiet!_" Sniffles hissed, "Something went wrong with Samiee…"

"What? What do mean _something went wrong?_" Stripes spat in a loud whisper.

"_SHHHH!"_ Sniffles whispered even more violently, "He somehow escaped from the lab, I barely got away, now _quiet!"_

"W-where is he?" Muffin whispered, "Is he still in the lab?"

"Most likely not, he was able to shut off the main power circuit to the whole house, he could be anywhere." The anteater whispered back, "I tried giving him a dose of sedative but it only aggravated him. Actually, Toothy showed up just moments before you arrived, his body should be around here somewhere." A loud crashing noise came from the second floor of the tree house and everyone held their breaths, not daring to move a muscle. A few moments later the lights flickered and came back on. Everyone flinched at the new light and they were able to get a good look at the house. It was completely trashed, furniture lay sprawled across the floor, a bookshelf had been tipped over, and Toothy lay spread-eagle in a corner with his skull crushed open with blood and bits of brain oozing out. Both Cellia and Muffin struggled to prevent themselves from vomiting. Sniffles was in a blood stained corner with a torn up lab coat wrapped around his cut up arm. Muffin helped him to his feet but Sniffles refused to make eye contact with the maroon fox. Cellia was hovering a few feet off the metal floor and Stripes had a concerned but determined look on her face.

"I…uh…got the vial." Muffin said, pulling out the half full PROJECT 00733 from her tail fur, "But when we got there, all the cookies were gone."

"Who do you know that has eaten one?" Sniffles asked, still refusing to make eye contact with her.

"On the way there Nutty was mauling Giggles," Muffin continued, her eyes burning, "And we met up with Shatter at the bakery but monster Komei showed up and killed her on the spot."

"And Shatter said that she saw at least five people with cookies." Stripes added.

"But you can still make an antidote, right?" Cellia asked the anteater. Sniffles sighed and said, "Well, I can, but it's going to take to long, about two months."

"TWO MONTHS?" Stripes shouted and another crash was heard upstairs, "We could all be dead by then!"

"I know, I know, that's why I'm proposing something. I think we should kill everyone who has been infected by the cookies and just hope that when they regenerate, they're back to normal."

"I-I can't m-murder someone! Killing someone by accident is one thing but-"

CRASH!

Everyone flinched as the sound came from near the stairs. Seconds later a desk chair came flying down the metal stair case and collided with Stripes. The orange tiger flew backwards and nearly hit the opposite wall. Stripes got up quickly with a menacing growl and made a mad dash for the stairs but was stopped by Cellia. Stripes was about to argue when the lights flickered out once more. Muffin felt something being pulled from the fur on her head and suddenly heard Stripes shouting. As the light came back on, Muffin felt around her right ear….her cookie barrette was missing. The fox looked over at the rest of the group and saw that Cellia's purple bow was gone, Sniffles glasses had been stolen, and perhaps worse of all: Stripes didn't have her ranger hat anymore. Stripes looked around her frantically; she had a look of fear and anger on her face. Another crash was heard near the stairs and Stripes ran as fast as she could for the stairs, ducking under Cellia's outstretched hands, and ignoring Sniffles' warnings.

"No Stripes! Come back, it's a trap! He's just trying to-….bait you. Damn it." Sniffles trailed off as Stripes' tail disappeared up the staircase, Sniffles sighed again and ran up the stairs, stumbling without the help of his glasses, with Cellia and Muffin following.

If the living room was a disaster, then upstairs was hell. Everything was tipped over, broken, or scattered. Different pools of rainbow colored chemicals were bubbling and fizzing on the floor near a flipped over shelf nearby and shouts were coming from the corner where Stripes was wrestling with the monster Samiee and Sniffles was trying to break them up, but to no avail. Cellia flew down and also began attempting to break the fight, but was only increasing the rage between the two. Muffin looked around frantically for a weapon but knew that even if she did find one, she would be too much of a coward to face the monster Samiee or the hatless Stripes.  
Stripes was losing. Even with her fighting skills, she was hardly a match for a kill-frenzy, monster Samiee. Stripes was pinned to the ground and Samiee had his claws around her neck and was choking her to death, he suddenly pierced skin with his deformed claws and Stripes cried out in pain. Blood oozed from her neck and spilled rapidly onto the metal floor.  
Before she even knew what she was doing, Muffin had grabbed a twisted piece of metal from a destroyed desk; it was about the size of a crowbar and was bent horribly at the tip. Muffin's mind was fuzzy, as she was acting purely on instinct. It happened so quickly that Sniffles and Cellia didn't even see the whole thing. Muffin ran up to Samiee and Stripes and with weapon in hand and with one very well aimed shot, closed her eyes and swung the piece of metal down with all her strength. Muffin felt a sting of resistance in her arms as the metal struck flesh and couldn't help but let go of the weapon. Time seemed to slow down, the few seconds before she finally opened her eyes seemed like hours, and when she did, she nearly fainted.

Samiee had been thrown off of Stripes and lay dead not two feet away. A twisted piece of metal jammed through his mouth and into his throat.

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**Me: I'm back! With a thousand paper cuts! What I miss?...Muffin? Where'd you go? ...Muffin? Huh, anyways, thank you all for reviewing last chapter! Your reviews are greatly appreciated!**


	5. Own Battles and Regeneration

**Alright, I can't find Muffin anywhere so I need to introduce this by myself...**

**...This is harder than I thought...**

**Anyway! Enjoy Chapter 4!**

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Muffin began to shake, she had just murdered someone, and she'd never purposely killed _anyone_ before. Sure, she was constantly inadvertently killing her customers with stray cookie cutters, exploding ovens, or the occasional spatula mishap, but…she had just _murdered_ someone. Dying was no big deal in this town, as almost every time it was an accident. But if you murder someone, the town begins to resent you horribly. This was the reason why everyone seemed to avoid Flippy and shot nasty looks at Lumpy every once in a while.  
Sniffles and Cellia appeared just as shocked as Muffin, and Stripes was trying to catch her breath. Muffin looked at her hands, they were splattered with blood. And she hadn't killed just anyone; she just killed Samiee, one of her best friends. Was this how Flippy constantly felt?

"Muffin…" Cellia attempted to put her hand on the fox's shoulder but Muffin jerked away, her eyes starting to tear up. Stripes slowly got up and accepted the roll of gauze Sniffles offered her. In the far corner next to Samiee's corpse, everyone's stolen items lay half-hidden under an oil-stained tarp. Stripes haphazardly wrapped her neck in bandages and snatched her ranger hat from the pile, placed it back on her head and sighed in relief. Sniffles retrieved his glasses and examined Samiee's body, the twisted piece of metal had been stabbed down his throat and exited at the base of his skull, his eyes were back to normal and the claws on his hands were already beginning to shrink. Sniffles grabbed the piece of metal and yanked it from Samiee's throat, blood shot in several directions and it took the anteater several tries to pull it free. Muffin went completely pale and vomited behind a collapsed shelf, her legs buckled and she fell to her knees, still trying to deny that she just murdered someone.

"Er…thanks Muffin…you really, uh, saved my neck back there." Stripes said as she forced a small laugh and adjusted the bandages on her pierced neck. Muffin was unaffected by the tiger's black humor and just stared at the floor. Sniffles threw down the bloody weapon and walked over to the maroon fox.

"Muffin, you had no other choice, it was in self-defense. If you hadn't done that, he may have killed Stripes." He said in a firm but kind tone. Stripes gave him a doubtful look but said nothing.

"You or Cellia could've tied him up again." Muffin muttered.

"Not true, you remember when Samiee attacked you? It takes nearly all the strength I have to pry those weird claws loose. Stripes could've been dead by then." Cellia said in a much softer tone and Stripes gave another doubtful look.

"Look, whether or not I could have died is nothing to think about right now" Stripes said in a surprisingly kind voice, "There are still eleven potential monsters out there. If we don't kill them now, they'll kill all of us non-stop."

"She's right, Muffin. I know you've never murdered anyone, but in this town, you get over it pretty quickly." Sniffles said. Stripes shot him a strange look, "Since when have you murdered anyone?" Sniffles gave a sheepish look in return, "Er…Remember when a bunch of us went on that school field trip and got stranded on an island? Well, Flaky popped the only escape route we had and we all got really pissed at her and sort of…you know…"

"Oh yeah, I've heard that story, she got Lifty and Shifty eaten by that shark and then she-"

"It's not the time for recalling memories of murder! We have to save the town!" Cellia shouted, interrupting Stripes. Sniffles nodded and walked briskly over to a toppled cabinet. He opened the doors and pulled out several sci-fi-like guns and handed each of them one. Cellia helped Muffin to her feet and handed her a gun and her cookie barrette

"What are these?" Cellia asked curiously.

"These are highly advanced weapons that I invented for a purpose such as this." Sniffles explained. "Actually, these were meant for the zombie apocalypse but this is close enough. My gun is the Disintegrator 460. Cellia's is the 0983 Melting Ray, Stripes has the Molecule Freezer 2000, and Muffin has the Acid Beam 6700. Their names give you a good hint of what they are capable of and mechanics are pretty straight forward: Point, aim, shoot."

Cellia looked at her gun, the 0983 Melting Ray, she didn't need it, considering she had powers of her own, but hey, who could refuse an awesome gun like this? Stripes grinned at her new weapon and aimed it at a toppled over chair, when she fired, a light blue beam shot out and glazed the chair in a thick layer of ice. Muffin stared at her gun with a blank expression.  
In a matter of moments, Sniffles, Muffin, Cellia, and Stripes were outside the metal house. The night was cold and dry, the town seemed to follow suit as it was strangely quiet for this hour. Several screams of terror broke the silence, followed by bloodcurdling roars. Shouting came from all directions and the group stood very still, listening to each movement. Finally, Stripes suggested they go scout out the town separately, as to cover more ground. After a few moments of debate, Sniffles agreed with the tiger and the group separated. Cellia flew at full-speed towards down town, the farthest away, Sniffles ran towards the supermarket, and Stripes headed for the police station for back up weapons. Meanwhile, Muffin still stood at the entrance of Sniffles' house, battling her thoughts. _Why am I doing this? I already killed Samiee, why would I kill more innocent people?_ She thought. _Then again, those monsters I created are going to kill everyone! If I don't do something, Sniffles could die next. _This went on for a few moments until Muffin sighed to herself and broke out in a run towards the more residential area of Happy Tree Town, armed with her Acid Beam 6700.

-Cellia-

Cellia zoomed past buildings as she approached the downtown area. Below her, she heard a high pitched scream followed by the sound of blood splatter. The pink squirrel flew down and spotted Nutty trying to claw Petunia's eyes out. He must have somehow escaped the tree. Nutty screamed horribly and threw the blue skunk's bloody eyeball at Cellia, which she easily dodged. Cellia aimed her 0983 Melting Ray at the squirrel and fired. A dull red beam shot from the barrel of the gun and struck the neon green monster. Nutty howled in pain and dropped to the ground, clutching his head. Suddenly, Nutty's skin began to slowly melt off like hot candle wax, blood bursting out in thick bubbles. Nutty's screams disguised a few insane giggles as his slowly eyes turned back to normal just before they were melted out of their sockets. After the ray's effects wore off, all that was left of the candy-crazed squirrel was a half melted skeleton with bits of burnt skin and flesh still attached. Petunia began to hyperventilate and ran off in terror, clutching her empty eye socket. Cellia stared horrified at her gun and nearly vomited.

-Sniffles-

Sniffles burst through the supermarket doors, not letting them automatically open. Moments ago he had heard Flaky screaming and went to investigate. There was no one in the supermarket and the only thing the anteater heard were crashes coming from the frozen foods section. Sniffles cautiously took a few more steps into the store, listening for anything that might sneak up on him. Flaky suddenly burst out of one of the aisles, screaming loudly with bits of dandruff flying from her quills.

"Flaky! Calm down! Flaky!" Sniffles tried to shout as the porcupine tackled him a tight hug, still screaming for her life. Flaky shakily pointed at the aisle where she came from and, still screaming, fled from the store, leaving a trail of broken quills and dandruff behind. Sniffles readied his Disintegrator 460 and walked slowly towards the frozen-food aisle. Another crash came from the aisle and the creature leapt out of the debris of the knocked over shelf. His small round eyes were pitch black and his long fingers had claws of the same length. Perhaps it was to be expected, considering he was an idiot and will eat any cookie someone gives him, but Sniffles hadn't been expecting having to fight the dim-witted blue moose, Lumpy.

-Stripes-

Stripes casually made her way to the local police station where she worked. She planned on gearing up with a few back up weapons and a pair of handcuffs couldn't hurt either. She was even thinking of changing into her police uniform, just for the fun of it, when a blue blur shot by her face. Stripes reacted quickly and dropped to the ground, aiming the Molecule Freezer 2000 at the sky where the blue blur had appeared. Another blur shot past but it stopped abruptly at the ground next to the tiger's head. It was Splendid, the super squirrel. Stripes sighed in relief. Splendid offered a paw to help Stripes up but she proudly rejected it and lifted herself off the pavement, her face growing slightly warm.

"Stripes, what are you doing here? There are monsters running around and everyone needs to get inside!" Splendid said in a heroic-like voice.

"I know, Muffin is the cause of all this. She baked some weird cookies and whoever ate them is turning into monsters!" Stripes said angrily.

"Muffin? I know she hates me and all but I didn't think she'd turn in to a criminal."

"No, she created them by accident, or so everyone believes. I swear once this is all over I'm go-" Stripes was interrupted by the sound of a shattering window. She dropped to the ground again and aimed her gun at the broken window of the flower shop. Splendid's eyes glowed with a readied laser beam as the culprit jumped out of the remains of the window. He wore a cameo jacket with a matching beret and his dog tags clinked together as he studied his surroundings. Splendid lost his concentration as his laser beam vanished and even Stripes flinched a little. Flippy had eaten a cookie, and his eyes were black, but the way he walked and snarled at the squirrel and tiger, he looked like Evil. Fliqpy must have taken control before Flippy turned completely monster, and now the war bear was stuck in between Evil and a cookie-crazed monster. This was going to be a tough battle…

-Muffin-

The maroon fox was slowly walking down Acorn Street, right smack in the middle of the road. This way, no one could sneak up on her and rip her to shreds. Her facial expression was perfectly straight, as in, if she were playing Texas Hold em' with Mime, Mole, and Cro-Marmot, her face would be hardest to read. She clutched the Acid Beam 6700 so hard in her paws that her knuckles were turning white. The houses on Acorn Street were all dark; Muffin determined that one of the monsters had knocked out power to this street. Out of the corner of her eye, Muffin saw a shadow moving across the street towards her. She spun around and pointed the gun at the shadow with shaking hands.

"Whoa, babe, chill!" The shadow brought his hands up in defense and although Muffin couldn't see very well in the darkness, she recognized the voice and figure of the shadow.

"Disco Bear?"

"Yeah, babe. So tell me, what's a fine lady like you wandering these streets for? And with that thing?" Disco Bear asked in his flirtatious voice while pointing at the gun in Muffin's hand.

"Well, I'm looking for monsters. You should get inside before one of them attacks you." Muffin urged.

"Alright babe, but how about you join me? I have room for two in my house tonight." Disco Bear grinned, Muffin wasn't positive but she was pretty sure he winked.

"I'd love to Disco Bear, but I need to find these monsters. Stripes, Sniffles, and Cellia are counting on me, and I owe it to Samiee." Muffin explained, not catching on that Disco Bear was trying to flirt with her.

"Stripes and Cellia?" Disco Bear said, suddenly excited, "I should tag along with ya' then, I can't let a babe like you go alone with these "monsters" hangin' around."

"Alright, I guess. But be careful and be sure to warn me of any shadows." Muffin agreed, still clueless that Disco Bear just wanted to flirt with her and her friends. Muffin and Disco Bear walked for a few more minutes down Acorn Street and came to the end of the power outage and a street light could be seen in front of them. When they were about to turn onto Walnut Road, a very fast shadow jumped out from behind a house and ran right for Disco Bear. Disco Bear screamed shrilly and ducked cowardly behind Muffin, who aimed the Acid Beam 6700 at the shadow. When the dark figure reached the light of the street lamp it stopped abruptly, blinded by the sudden light. Muffin squinted in the darkness and saw that the attacker was the mute, purple deer, Mime, and his eyes were black. Muffin didn't fire the gun, of all people she had to shoot right now, it had to be another one of her close friends. Damn it…

-Samiee-

The room was dark. Samiee the fox woke up with a start, breathing heavily. He sat up and looked around; it was very dark but he could tell was in the kitchen of his house. Moonlight peeked through the window and lightened the room just enough for him to see the figures of everything in the room. He tried to clear his mind as he struggled to read the wall clock. 11:43 P.M.  
Samiee groaned and rubbed his head painfully. Had he died? Usually when one dies in this town it takes a full day to regenerate. Then again, there had been records of instant regeneration and once Petunia hadn't regenerated until a week after her death. Samiee looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. He remembered nothing after biting into that glowing cookie. Perhaps the cookie was poisonous? Samiee slowly got up from the tiled kitchen floor and felt around the wall for the light switch, he found it but when he flicked it on, the lights stayed off. He repeated this action several times before determining the power was out. The orange fox walked over to the window and peered out. He saw darkness all around, but the moonlight gave enough light so see the general layout. In the distance he heard several screams and a chilling howl. Something wasn't right… Samiee quickly grabbed his black scarf off the ground and ran out side in search of someone that could tell him what exactly was going on.

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**Samiee is back in the picture and everyone is off fighting monsters! Stripes and Splendid are forced to fight Evil and Muffin has to protect Disco Bear from one of her best friends! Sniffles has to fight a demented Lumpy and Cellia has a gun that melts your flesh off! What could possibly go wrong?**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated! **


	6. Monster Blood

**And we're back! It's that dreaded time of year: testing. My brain is fried and I figured I should wrap up the next chapter of The Perfect Cookie before I turn into a brain-dead zombie! So forgive me if this chapter is a little short. Ah, I may as well do a bit of advertising. A new episode of Happy Tree Friends came out last Saturday, for all those interested. It's called Royal Flush and starrs Lammy! (Something terrible happens to Flaky by the way...even for HTF standards...)**

**Also, I still can't find Muffin, she's usually here to introduce the chapter with me...**

**Anyways, enjoy!**

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"Of all people, why did Evil have to eat a cookie?" Stripes mumbled as Evil Flippy studied his surroundings, laying his narrowed black eyes on the tiger and super squirrel. Splendid's ears flicked forward as the demented war bear gave a horrific shrieking roar and charged at the duo. This struck Stripes as odd; usually Evil wouldn't be so careless and would think of some sort of ninja tactic or something. Splendid, on the other hand, had met the war bear very few times and had no clue of Evil's usual fighting style. Evil lunged towards Stripes and the orange tiger quickly rolled out of his grasp and leapt to her feet. Splendid had taken to the air and was preparing another blast of heat vision.

Stripes jumped twice to the left, dodging very sharp claws that intended to gut her on the spot. She aimed the Molecule Freezer 2000 at the green bear as he once again charged at Stripes, arms outstretched. She squeezed the trigger until it dug into her hand, a small, bright beam of blue shot from the barrel and struck the bear, causing a layer of ice to glaze over him and freeze him on the spot. Unfortunately, a split second after Stripes had fired her gun; Splendid had launched his beam of heat vision. The beam hit the newly frozen Evil and resulted in a slightly dazed, and soaked in water, cookie monster war bear. Stripes couldn't help but smack her forehead in frustration but had no time to think as the bear charged her again. She attempted to sidestep the bear and let him crash into a wall, but Evil caught wind of her intention of dodging and turned to meet her movements. Stripes wasn't expecting this and was caught by surprise as clawed hands wrapped around her throat. Again. A twinge of frustration and annoyance surfaced as the tiger clocked the war bear in the jaw with her right fist. Evil recoiled and let go of Stripes, who adjusted her bandages.

"God damn it, what is with these monsters and choking people?" She muttered. Splendid had swooped down and tackled Evil to the ground in a double summersault. The war bear flailed almost idiotically and clawed at the super squirrel's hands but was only successful at ripping out some blue fur. Stripes quickly grabbed her gun which had flown out of her hands after Evil had attempted to choke her to death. Splendid was so focused on dodging the war bear's snapping jaws that he didn't notice what was in the monster's free hand.

_Chick._

Splendid's head snapped down and saw to his horror, a pin-less grenade in the bear's paw. He quickly released Evil and flew high in the air, taking a protesting Stripes with him. The grenade exploded with unusually strong force, sending waves of hot air to interfere with the squirrel's flight pattern. Once the smoke settled down enough, Splendid soared back down to the ground and released Stripes, who had been punching the squirrel's arm and, although Splendid would never admit it, it actually kind of hurt.

"Damn it. He got away." Splendid muttered bitterly, looking around for the war bear, who had escaped the explosion.

"Not quite, check this out." Stripes said as she peered at the cracked concrete next to the now heavily damaged flower shop. A small trickle of blood led to the north of town, along Cedar Road. Stripes grinned, "He left a trail, _and_ he's wounded. This should be fun." Splendid gave her a curious look but said nothing as the duo sprinted down Cedar Road. The bear couldn't have gotten far.

Samiee looked around curiously, still forgetting where his house was in town. Samiee usually lived in the circular forest surrounding the cursed town, but had bought a small, run down house in town. The reason for this was because every time he used to die in town, he would always wake up right next to the town dump, and he didn't like that at all. The forest didn't apply to the rules of the strange curse so most Tree Friends avoided it. Nice and peaceful, not to mention that the animals there didn't die constantly. He hadn't even bothered to fill the house with a bed or food or anything of the sort, as when he woke up he usually just went back to the forest to rest. The fox squinted at the road, which was pitch black due to the power outage. Lights from the neighboring street flickered and caught Samiee's eye. Memories of the street's surroundings flooded back to him and he was able to identify the road more accurately. He was on Acorn Street and the lights where coming from Walnut Road. Interesting, why was only one road out of power? The fox's first thought was Lumpy. That stupid blue moose was always screwing things up. Oh well, he still knew nothing about his own death, perhaps someone on Walnut Road could tell him. He ran off into the darkness.

The orange fox jogged steadily towards the intersection between Acorn Street and Walnut Road, but in the street light illuminating the intersection, he saw three figures. He was too far away to see them clearly, but he noticed that one figure had a large, bushy afro. Disco Bear no doubt. He was cowering behind a second figure holding what looked like a gun and was pointing it at the third figure, which was hunched over slightly and taking slow steps towards the two. The figure holding the gun had fox ears, and a Samiee drew closer, saw that a round shaped object was attached to the right ear. Samiee slowed to a walking pace and began moving to the darker shadows of the buildings. As he got closer he saw that the figure holding the gun was Muffin the fox, and the third figure was Mime the deer. But the deer looked horrifically different. His eyes were completely black and talon-like claws were sticking out of his hands. Mime's lips were moving in a soundless growl and Muffin's hands were shaking as she gripped the gun's trigger. Was Muffin trying to shoot Mime? That didn't make sense; Mime and Muffin were good friends. Disco Bear hiding behind her was no surprise; he'd always been a coward.

Samiee was about to intervene and hopefully settle whatever argument they were in when Mime lunged at Muffin and tore his claws across her face, leaving three bloody gashes on her forehead, all the way down to her left cheek. Muffin shrieked in pain and fired the gun. A sickly green blob fired from the barrel and struck the deer in the right antler. The blob sizzled as it moved down the antler. It took Mime a few seconds to feel it, but when he did, he made quite a show of it. He flailed and dropped to the ground and began trying to scrape the goo off his antler with his hands. Big mistake. Samiee watched in horror as the deer's hands dissolved away in a rancid black smoke, leaving nothing but charred bone and dripping, steaming blood. Muffin was shaking violently and threw the gun far away from her; it skidded to a halt mere feet away from Samiee. Disco Bear was still cowering as Mime screamed silently as his flesh was burned off his bones, giving off the smell of chemicals and cooking venison. Samiee was in disbelief, he had never seen Muffin kill someone intentionally.

The maroon fox brought her paw to her cheek and winced. She tore a semi-clean shred of gauze off her quickly healing neck and dabbed halfheartedly at the gashes, she seemed ok enough. Mime, on the other hand, not so much. The blob had now burned its way into the deer's torso area, he was no longer moving and his eyes were shut tight, but whether it was from death or sheer pain, none of them knew. Muffin seemed utterly traumatized, she was shaking violently and her pupils were tiny dots. Tears streamed down her cheeks and into her open wounds, while her cookie barrette was half-pinned to her ear and dangled precariously. Disco Bear, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine with just being attacked by the monster deer and fluffed his orange afro as he rose from the pavement. Samiee decided to remain hidden in the shadows until he learned more about the situation, or until Muffin calmed down enough to be approached, which ever came first. Whenever Muffin became this upset, which was rare in itself, trying to talk to her was out of the question, as it usually just made the situation worse. Samiee carefully picked up the sci-fi gun Muffin had thrown a few feet away from him. Engraved into the barrel of the gun was "Acid Beam 6700 _prototype_". Sniffles' handiwork undoubtedly, he'd always been obsessed with making some kind of death ray to use against zombies. But why did Muffin have it?

Muffin, still shaking, disregarded the gun she had thrown and began taking wobbly but brisk steps onward down Walnut Road, towards her bakery on Maple Street. A slightly winded Disco Bear straggled behind her and Samiee trailed them, concealed in the shadows of houses and large bushes.

Lumpy was limping; obviously Flaky had been somewhat successful in defeating the blue moose, as a broken red, dandruff speckled quill stuck out from his right leg. Sniffles began to walk around the moose, who had yet to notice him, in a large circle. Lumpy wasn't exactly the…smartest… moose in the world, and being in a wild state, perhaps his vision was primitive and based off of sudden movement. Lumpy was looking intently at the collapsed shelf, as if processing what he had to do next. Lumpy's black eyes moved slowly from the shelf to a moving blue thing. The hell? What is that? Its funny looking….should he attack it? Whoa, those cans look shiny. Shiiiiny….

Sniffles nearly laughed at the stupid moose, who was now focused intently on a can of baked beans, but he kept his cool and proceeded to walk in a large circle, moving closer and closer to the moose. Lumpy looked at him from the can he was holding, that funny elephant looking thing was coming awfully close. Wait…he wanted to steal his can! Never! Lumpy dropped the beans and gave a deafening roar; Sniffles came to a stop and aimed his gun shakily at the moose. Lumpy lunged at the anteater, time seemed to slow down as the moose soared through the air, his claws ready to maul Sniffles to death. Sniffles was too stunned to move or fire his gun as he watched the black-eyed moose fall closer and closer to him until he finally hit his target…..five feet away from Sniffles. The anteater stood dazed for a few seconds as the monster Lumpy lay feet away from him, wrestling with a large teddy bear that had fallen from the toy aisle right next to them.

"Unbelievable, as a monster he's even _more _of an idiot." Sniffles grumbled to himself as Lumpy was failing at tearing the teddy bear's arm off. Sniffles simply pointed the gun at the idiotic blue moose and fired. A bright white beam blasted from the barrel and struck Lumpy square between the eyes. He gave a yelp in pain but couldn't do much more than that as he was shrouded in the white light and dissolved to nothing more than a smoldering pile of blue ashes and two detached antlers.

Cellia was having problems of her own, after the incident with Nutty she was very reluctant to use her 0983 Melting Ray. Yet, her own attempts to kill monster Cuddles weren't working exactly as she had hoped for. At first, she tried to blast the fluff of his head with a beam of heat vision, but that little son of a bitch was faster than he looked! The scene was in downtown Happy Tree Town; small knickknack shops lined the streets and were completely deserted. Word of the cookie monsters had spread across town and those not infected had either panicked and gotten themselves killed, or were hiding in the closets of their darkened houses. Cuddles scrambled in and out of the thin alleys between the shops, all the time growling like a blood-thirsty maniac and throwing loose bricks at Cellia who was ten feet in the air. A dead Pop and Cub lay in the middle of the street, their throats ripped out; apparently choking was a hobby of these monsters. Cellia dodged several red bricks and flew safely a few more feet in the air and stopped to think. She was unable to kill the yellow bunny with her heat vision without utterly destroying the shops. Her ice breath would only be helpful against the flying bricks but it was easier to just dodge them, and she couldn't use her super strength unless she caught him. She was only fast in the air and the alleys were much too narrow to fly quickly through. Damn it, who knew killing a bunny could be so hard?

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**Muffin: Hey! I did not cry! I was sweating from the sheer awsomness of my power.**

**You cried and you know it. Wait! Where the hay have you been?**

**Muffin: Don't worry about it.**

**You've been missing for a while! Tell me!**

**Muffin: I said don't worry about it.**

**Grr...fine. Anyways, the cookie infected count has reached 7! Where are the remaining 5 cookies? Will our heros defeat every monster and escape unharmed? Until next time... **

**Muffin: Reviews are greatly appreciated! **


	7. Skateboards, Shatter, and Oranges

**Testing is over! I have a new supply of gummy bears! And my choir class is teaching me that whales can fly! Well, this is the longest chapter I've written so far so I hope you guys like it! After writting They Won't Come Back, my motivation has increased ten-fold! **

**Muffin: You mean after you made the town get murdered? My body was dumped in a freaking river! Along with several other OCs! **

**Well, it's not like you've never died before.**

**Muffin: That's it, I am never baking you cookies again. -_-**

**NOOO! D:**

**Muffin: heh heh. Enjoy the story.**

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"GAH! GET BACK HERE YOU STUPID MONSTER BUNNY!" Cellia yelled as she tried to maneuver her way through the narrow alleyways. She'd been chasing the cookie infected Cuddles for over half an hour now, dodging bricks and bumping into the walls around her, and she was at her wits end. Using her heat vision, she attempted to incinerate Cuddles on the spot but he somehow managed to avoid her laser beams each time she threw them. Cellia was intent on causing as little damage as she could to the near by shops and so far, she wasn't doing too well. Many of the shops had either broken windows from Cuddles' bricks, or had chunks of wall taken out of them from Cellia smashing into the alleyways.

After another ten minutes of non-stop chasing of the monster rabbit, Cellia came to a halt outside an antiques shop to catch her breath and think things over. Cuddles was a bunny, bunnies are fast, a monster bunny is even faster, and she can't catch him in the air. Cellia even considered the 0983 Melting Ray, but after a closer inspection of the gun she noticed the word '_prototype_' etched into the side and that deleted any chance the gun had of being used again. She was going to have to use her cleverness to lure the bunny to his…death. Cellia swallowed hard, this was the first time she really thought about what she was intending to do once she caught Cuddles. She was supposed to kill him on the spot, even though she hated the thought, more would die if she didn't do it. She sighed and thought some more about what to do. All she knew was that Cuddles was allergic to carrots (ironic as it was), he was dating Giggles, his fur was ridiculously soft, and that he loved skateboarding. But how much was a monster-fied Cuddles going to enjoy a skateboard now? Perhaps she could give it a shot. The flying squirrel rotated in mid air, looking for a shop fitting her plan. As luck would have it, Chopper's Street Café was nearby and she knew that the owner kept a display of wicked looking skateboards and BMX's to attract customers. Of course, the store was closed, but Cellia was sure that the owner "Chopper" wouldn't mind if she borrowed one of his boards, just for a minute.

Sniffles stared at the still smoldering pile of ashes that was once a monster form of Lumpy and sighed. At first he had believed 100% that this was all Muffin's fault, after all she had stolen the PROJECT 00733 from is laboratory, but he was beginning to blame himself a little. If he hadn't destroyed the chemical when he knew it was unstable, Muffin wouldn't have stolen it out of curiosity. After all, dark blue was her favorite color. Sniffles laughed inwardly at how he knew that about the maroon fox and realized how long they've been friends. Two years almost now, since Muffin moved to Happy Tree Town. She'd claimed to have come to the cursed town because competition baking was too much for her, yet she pushed herself to bake as much as she could each day…which was a lot.

Sniffles made his way around to the back of the store, perhaps, if this mission was going to be an all-nighter, he should stock up on some fruit and some snacks just in case he met up with any of his teammates. He loaded up a small grocery back with apples, oranges, some BBQ chips, a flashlight, and two bottles of water. He needed to travel light just in case he had to run. Lumpy eating a cookie was almost a lucky break; he was too much of an idiot to be a real threat to anyone, but if someone more dangerous came along he needed to be prepared to run for his life. Loaded up with fruit and water, Sniffles made his way for the entrance of the store, turned left, and, trying as hard as he could to stay in the shadows, began to sneak his way to a more residential area of town in hopes of finding a teammate or another monster.

"Hey babe, where're we headin' anyway?" Disco Bear said between breaths. Muffin acted like she didn't hear him and continued walking down the middle of Maple Street, her eyes still darting back and forth but showing no emotion. Without the Acid Beam 6700 she was unarmed and needed to be prepared for anything that could pop out at her. In the distance, a familiar building was silhouetted against the night sky. Muffin's Bakery. Muffin's mouth twitched into a small smile at the sight of her precious bakery, the thing she devoted her life to, but the smile left as quickly as it came after she remembered why she was going to her bakery in the first place. Komei was still tied up in the bakery and, being a monster, she needed to be killed too. As much as Muffin didn't want to kill her friend, if anyone was going to kill something in _her_ bakery it was going to be her.

Samiee was now darting from hedge to hedge on the opposite side of the street that the bakery was on. He watched as Muffin and Disco Bear came to a halt outside the building. Muffin turned and said something to Disco Bear that Samiee could not hear, and she walked carefully into the bakery. Samiee guessed that now would be a good time to reveal himself, Muffin was calm enough and Disco was still trying to catch his breath. Samiee made to stand up from behind the hedge he was crouched behind when he noticed a figure walking towards them from the sidewalk. The orange fox immediately flattened himself against the ground and held his breath.

Disco Bear also noticed the figure and almost full-on freaked out. Muffin said that if he saw any monster, to kill it on the spot. How the hell was he supposed to kill a monster? He didn't even have a weapon, and he might mess up his beautiful afro! Plus, he was slightly out of shape, but only a little chubby around the middle. The figure stopped suddenly around a hundred feet from Disco Bear and fumbled around him as if he was looking for something. A bright yellow light blasted from the figure and Disco Bear gave a high pitched scream.

"Disco Bear? Is that you?" A nerdy voice asked.

"Are you _sure_ he went this way, Stripes?"

"Well, considering the trail of blood and broken windows, yes. Grr…once this is all over Flippy is going to spend a long time behind bars." Stripes growled as she and Splendid were still sprinting down the sidewalk, following the small trail of blood and smashed windows. They heard some more crashes up ahead and quickened their pace. At last, they caught sight of Evil struggling to release his army jacket from a shard of glass stuck in a window. His leg was twisted horribly and a small trickle of blood was pooling on the concrete, it was a complete mystery how he could run so fast with his leg bent that way. Half his face was burnt to a black crisp and the other half had small, already infected cuts all over it. He growled menacingly as he failed at untangling the treads of his jacket from the piece of glass. Stripes didn't hesitate as she pulled her gun out once again and fired at the war bear. The bright beam of blue light blasted from the barrel and successfully glazed Evil in a casing of ice.

Splendid and Stripes quickly discussed how to go about killing Evil, as the ice was already beginning to melt. Splendid suggested he use his heat vision but Stripes crushed that option saying that it will just unfreeze him quicker.

Evil was completely frozen but his eyes could still move around in their sockets and the large black pupils darted back and forth between the tiger and the blue squirrel. Stripes suggested smashing the iced Evil to bits and when Splendid agreed, she began to walk up to the frozen war bear, but was stopped by a blue hand. Splendid pushed her back a few inches and pointed to himself heroically. He marched over to the monster Evil and cracked his knuckles, while Stripes rolled her eyes but smiled a little. A low, muffled growl could be heard from inside the ice casing, which was melting fast, and Evil's beret was already half thawed. Splendid rolled his shoulder back and brought his fist upwards in an insanely strong uppercut, making contact with the monster's lower jaw. The effect was almost instantaneous as the war bear shattered into countless pieces. Blood splattered and reached almost ten feet away from where Evil was standing. The warm bits of flesh, bone, and blood quickly melted the ice, creating a water-blood mixture with torn pieces of jacket and green fur blended into it. Splendid flinched when he noticed his blue fur was stained with Evil's blood, he sighed, blood was always so difficult to wash out of his fur.

"Well that took longer than expected." Stripes said as she walked up to the bloody, soupy mess that was once Evil. She peered into a nearby shop and checked the time. 2:54 A.M. It would be dawn soon, and when everyone was awake and running around and panicking like idiots, it would be harder to protect them from the monsters. And with that, and the hope that Flippy would regenerate completely normal, Stripes and Splendid began to walk (or float in Splendid's case) away from the disaster of broken shops and windows.

Cellia had her plan fully intact, an awesome looking skateboard with flaming carrots painted on it sat in the middle of the street and the pink squirrel was hiding in Chopper's Street Café, peering out of the broken window. She estimated that the monster Cuddles was hiding two alleyways down and on the other side of the street (with more bricks no doubt) and listened intently for anything out of the ordinary. Roughly ten minutes later, Cellia's keen eyes caught sight of movement to the left of her. A yellow figure was peering out of the alleyway and spotted the skateboard. Cuddles' ears flattened for a moment bur straightened again as he took another wary step out into the open. Cellia noticed something about the bunny's eyes, the pupils were still huge, but the thin white gap had grown considerably after he'd seen the skateboard. The monster bunny took a few more steps into the open, stopping every time he heard a noise. He was now 10 feet away from the skateboard…8 feet…4 feet…2 feet.

Cuddles got down onto all fours and actually sniffed the board in curiosity like a wild rabbit would; he then took one clawed paw and set it in the center of the skate board. He moved the board back and forth on the pavement like a child playing with a toy truck. Cellia's stomach twisted as the sight reminded her of when she would babysit Cub. The pink squirrel ignored the feeling and readied herself to pounce, her eyes locked on the bunny. After a few still seconds, save for the sound of skateboard wheels on pavement, Cellia blasted from her hiding spot and snatched the monster up by the scruff of his neck. Cuddles squealed in shock and roared when he realized who had a hold of him. Cellia gave a triumphant "Ha!" in victory and lifted the bunny higher into the air. He was flailing like a mad man but was no match for Cellia's super strength. Cellia was pondering how to quickly and humanely kill the monster Cuddles when she heard a familiar voice.

"Oi! Cellia! What are you doing with Cuddles?" The voice shouted from below. Cellia looked down and was shocked to see Shatter, perfectly healed and munching on a pink frosted cupcake.

"Shatter? How'd you regenerate so quickly?" Cellia asked in awe.

"Amazing healing factor." Shatter replied, pointing to herself with a proud air and pink frosting on her cheeks. Cellia was about to ask what that heck that meant when Cuddles gave another violent squirming session in hopes of being released.

"Well, then can you help me with this?" Cellia asked, shaking the monster around to get him to stop resisting, and it actually seemed to work! Shatter smiled, "Bring him down here." Cellia obeyed and brought Cuddles lower to the ground, but still kept a firm grip on the back of his neck. Cuddles growled threateningly at light blue cat, who simply smiled. It happened to fast that Cellia had no time to react or even flinch but when she regained her senses, Cuddles' head lay ten feet away from them and blood was spurting out of the bunny's open neck hole. Shatter, meanwhile, had a blood stained katana in her hand with a light blue handle and some insane looking cat head carved into the end. She had a full grin on her face and laughed at Cellia's shocked expression.

Muffin felt along the wall inside her bakery and cursed under her breath. She couldn't find the light switch. If that stupid super squirrel hadn't demolished her bakery last month (_again)_, she wouldn't have had to rewire _everything_ and move her light fixtures around. She gave up after stubbing her toe against a shelf and relied on the small bit of moonlight shining into the bakery. Komei should be tied up somewhere around the register, but she would need a weapon…

"Don't hurt me! I'm too pretty to die!" Disco Bear screamed as he cowered against the pavement. The blinding yellow light ceased and Sniffles walked up to the frightened bear.

"Disco Bear? What are you doing outside Muffin's Bakery?" Sniffles asked, helping the groovy bear to his feet.

"Sniffles? Thank God, I thought you were one of those crazy monsters Muffin was talking about" He said as he re-fluffed his orange afro, "Oh, and Muffin's inside, she said she needed to take care of some-" _snap._ Sniffles and Disco Bear froze at the sound of the snapping twig. In the nearby hedge, Samiee cursed inwardly at himself, he hadn't seen that twig that was now beneath his right foot in two pieces. Sniffles flicked on the flashlight and began shining it around the general area Samiee was in. The light stopped on the hedge the fox was behind and Samiee held his breath. In one swift move, Sniffles pulled his gun and incinerated the hedge into an explosion of smoldering green ashes, revealing a dazed orange fox. Sniffles smirked, "Well, well, well. A spy." Samiee grumbled under his breath, brushed himself off, and walked over to the bear and anteater.

"I'll have you know, I wasn't _spying_. I was collecting information in a stealthy way." Samiee said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"How did you regenerate so quickly anyway?" Sniffles asked, rolling his eyes.

"That's what I want to know, I don't even know how I died." Samiee replied, also rolling his eyes.

"Ha! You mean you don't remember killing Toothy? And nearly killing Muffin, Stripes and me? Likely story." Sniffles sneered. Samiee flinched at this information and his look of shock took Sniffles by surprise.

"What's going on? Samiee killed Toothy? What?" Disco Bear asked, dumbfounded, but the anteater and fox ignored him.

"What do you mean I killed Toothy? All I remember is eating a cookie Muffin gave me." Samiee whispered.

"That cookie was laced with a gene altering solution and turned you wild. Muffin, Stripes, and Cellia trusted me enough to try and heal you, but that's when I found out the cookies were accidently poisoned. Now eleven monsters are on the loose because of those cookies and all because you took a bite out of one…You seriously can't remember?" Sniffles asked with the slightest look of concern. Samiee thought for a moment, so that's why Muffin attacked Mime, and explained the power outages. People in this town had a bad habit of panicking,

"Well then explain why you gave Muffin a gun that burns through her friends' skin?" Samiee demanded while holding the gun out. Sniffles went wide eyed and grabbed for the gun but the fox pulled it away at the last second, grinning.

"We all have one, Cellia, Stripes and me, that is. Muffin had one too but it looks like you stole it." Sniffles argued. Samiee was about to reply when the entrance to the bakery opened and Muffin stepped out, looking very troubled and holding a long knife that looked like blood had been hastily wiped off it.

"Great. That's the second time Komei died in my bakery this week; she'll never set foot near it again." She mumbled and buried the knife safely into her tail fur. She saw Sniffles standing there with his arms crossed, walked over to him, and punched him twice in the arm.

"Ouch! What was that for?" The anteater yelled.

"For giving me a gun that burns through people's flesh!" She snapped back. Sniffles seemed taken aback by this but said nothing.

"SAMIEE!" Muffin yelled at the sight of the orange fox still glaring at Sniffles, "How'd you regenerate so fast?"

"Er…that's what I'm trying to figure out. I still don't know how I died, and Sniffles here said I killed Toothy and almost killed you and Stripes. Ha, ha." Samiee said with hope that the anteater was playing some kind of cruel joke on him.

Muffin took a deep breath and began to explain everything that had happened in the past twelve hours in one breath, from Samiee ripping up her throat, to Nutty mauling Giggles, to Sniffles hiding in the dark, to her killing Samiee with the twisted piece of metal and ended with her killing Mime and Komei. After she'd finished, Samiee looked dazed as he tried to process all this information. A few awkward moments passed as Muffin, Sniffles and Samiee thought about the night's events while Disco Bear ran a comb through his afro.

"Well…Stripes and Cellia are still out searching for monsters, I say we take a break and develop a new strategy. I brought snacks." Sniffles said as he began to pull items out of his grocery bag. He gave the apple to Samiee, saying that he could never quite stomach an apple after what the Ant Family did to him. Disco Bear somehow ended up with the bag of chips, much to Muffin's disappointment. All that was left was the water bottles and an orange. And Muffin, being deathly allergic to oranges, took the water bottle. Sniffles peeled the orange and the scent of citrus filled the air. They all sat in front of the bakery, discussing the monsters they've killed, who could possibly be left, and what to do now. Muffin shined a flashlight into her bakery. The clock said 3:47 A.M.

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**Shatter returns, Samiee discovers that Muffin killed him, Muffin kills Komei, Sniffles begins to realize his friendship with Muffin a little more, Cellia caught Cuddles, Stripes and Splendid actually killed Evil, and Disco Bear is, well, Disco Bear. **

**Muffin: At least we get to rest, it's 3 in the morning!**

**Yeah, that's what you think...**

**Muffin: What?**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated!**


	8. The Last of the Monsters

**Woo! Finished this chapter!**

**Muffin: ...That's it? nothing else to add to this introduction?**

**Nope. -puts on sunglasses- Deal with it. **

**Muffin: -facepalm- Well, enjoy this chapter everyone. **

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"Wait, so I turned into a black-eyed monster with claws?" Samiee asked, taking another bite out of his apple.

"Yep, and then you tried to choke me to death, and then Stripes, and I don't know how you managed to kill Toothy." Muffin explained, pointing to her bandaged neck and concentrating on untangling a particularly strong knot in her tail fur.

"Wow, I don't remember any of that..." Samiee said, lost in thought.

"Well, now that we've cleared that story up, we need to think of a strategy." Sniffles pointed out.

"We just need to go around and kill the remaining monsters, simple." Muffin said, taking another drink of water, her attitude showing a little.

"I say we wait for Cellia and Stripes to get back here. We can signal them with a flare, you have one in your bakery, right Muffin?" Sniffles asked.

"Yep! I'll go get-" Muffin paused mid-sentence. Her fox ears had picked up a weird sound approaching. Samiee seemed to have heard it moments before Muffin because he had started to stand up slowly. Disco Bear was clueless but Sniffles caught on and put his hand on the handle of his gun. A few seconds went by as the group on the sidewalk listened for anything else out of the ordinary, when a blur shot past the group. Sniffles fired his gun rapidly after the blur and in the process disintegrating a mailbox, a bush, a flower shop door, and a small tree. Disco Bear screamed and hid behind Samiee, who had unsheathed his katana. Muffin's ears lay flat as she untangled the long knife from her tail fur.

The blur shot past again but stopped just short of the group. The four jumped back, away from the figure, Samiee nearly tripped over Disco Bear and Sniffles had a determined glare on his face.

"There you guys are! We've been looking all over for you!" A familiar voice said. Splendid the squirrel stepped into the street light, with Stripes the tiger on his back. The orange tiger hopped off the squirrel's back, walked over to the group, and took Muffin's water bottle from her hand.

"Hey guys." She said simply, taking a big gulp of water.

"You scared us! We thought you were a m-monster!" Disco Bear whimpered. Muffin was dazed for a few seconds but after she'd processed that Splendid and Stripes had arrived, she noticed that Sniffles' hand was gripping her arm protectively, subconsciously that is. She felt the tips of her ears grow warm. Sniffles noticed this and took his hand away rather quickly, blushing.

"Er…where've you guys been?" Sniffles stuttered, his face still warm.

"Just got back from killing a monster Evil." Stripes grinned proudly.

"Flippy was turned into a monster too?" Samiee asked, crestfallen.

"Yep. That guy is fast too, took us forever to catch him, but Stripes really knows how to catch a runaway." Splendid said. Muffin wasn't sure but she thought she saw Stripes blush a little.

"Well, at least you're both safe. Now we just need to find Cellia..." Samiee said, still a little upset that Flippy had been killed.

"And the rest of those stupid cookies." Splendid added. Muffin flushed red with anger, although her dark fur hid it fairly well.

"Cookies are _not_ stupid." Muffin growled, glaring at the super squirrel.

"Are you kidding me? Those cookies of yours could destroy the entire town! Stupid if you ask me." Splendid argued while crossing his arms, but this only made the maroon fox madder. The two began to yell at each other, throwing bitter arguments and accusations back and forth. While this was going on, Sniffles had taken a flash light into the bakery and found the flare Muffin kept under her register counter after stepping over a dead Komei, who had a slit throat. Samiee had sheathed his katana and Disco Bear was attempting to flirt with Stripes with negative results. Sniffles came out of the bakery around the time that Muffin was yelling at Splendid about the giant snowball incident. He pointed the flare gun into the air, plugged his ear with the other hand and fired. A flaming ball of red light blasted into the sky, silencing the arguing and failed attempts of flirting. The light shot high into the air and seemed to hover there for a few seconds before slowly falling and disappearing.

"Now we wait." Sniffles said, taking a seat on the sidewalk with his gun in his lap. The rest followed suit and kept a close eye out for anymore noises. Around ten minutes later, a pink and blue blur shot past the group and nearly crashed into a small tree. Cellia regained her footing and looked around to see the group. Shatter stepped down off her back much as Stripes had.

"Wow Cellia, that was fast." Splendid said, floating up to his pink cousin. Cellia beamed and greeted the squirrel. Shatter brushed herself off and pulled out another cupcake from nowhere, this time with green frosting.

"Shatter? How'd you regenerate so fast?" Muffin asked, dumbstruck. Shatter mumbled something incoherent as she had a mouth full of cupcake.

After another recollection of stories, it was discovered exactly how many monsters were killed. Cellia had killed Nutty, Sniffles had taken out Lumpy, Muffin eliminated Komei, Mime, and monster Samiee, Stripes and Splendid had eradicated Evil, and Shatter had done in with Cuddles.

"That means there are," Cellia counted on her fingers, "Seven monsters down and five to go."

"Wouldn't be if those stupid cookies didn't exist." Splendid said stubbornly.

"THAT'S IT! You've pushed your luck, Splendid!" Muffin yelled dramatically, rolling up her sleeves, "You force me to use my super secret special move to shut your mouth for you!" Muffin took a battle-ready stance in front of an equally prepared Splendid. She glared daggers at the squirrel, who was becoming slightly nervous. The rest of the group looked at Muffin with curiosity, except for Sniffles, who didn't seem too concerned. Muffin pointed her right finger at Splendid and shouted at the top of her lungs, "MUFFIN ATTACK!" the words echoed around the buildings and distant thunder came from nowhere. Splendid's tail twitched as he looked around nervously. Then, out of the sky, falling at top speed, a chocolate chip muffin landed on Splendid's head and dropped harmlessly to the ground. Sniffles face-palmed, Samiee grinned, Disco Bear was still hiding behind a tree, and Stripes, Cellia, and Shatter were laughing uncontrollably. Muffin looked quite satisfied with herself while Splendid was dumbstruck.

"That's it? That's your super secret special move?" He asked, picking up the muffin and examining it.

"Hey, that's an improvement! Usually it's a blueberry muffin." Muffin said, crossing her arms and smiling smugly. Stripes, Shatter, and Cellia were still laughing as Splendid rolled his eyes, took a bite out of the muffin, and sat back down. The group didn't have long to rest after that, when a rustling was heard in the nearby bushes. Stripes and Shatter immediately quit laughing and Cellia rose into the air with Splendid. Samiee drew his katana and Sniffles readied his gun. Disco Bear still hid behind the tree and Muffin pointed her knife at the bushes. Two money green tails appeared out of the bushes and leaped out in front of the group. Growling, snarling, and standing on all-fours like and angry cat, the black-eyed Lifty and Shifty stared at the group.

"Oh crap. They _both_ ate one?" Sniffles said, aiming his gun.

"Well, they _are_ twins, Sniffles." Samiee replied, readying his sword. Lifty screamed and lunged for the nearest person, Shatter, in hopes of ripping her face off. Shatter reacted instantaneously, drew her own sword and slashed Lifty in the stomach…well, almost. Lifty landed on his feet behind Shatter with only a thin cut across his fur. Shatter was shocked by his speed. Disco Bear ran out from the nearby tree in terror, but Lifty saw him before he could hide again. Using his claws, Lifty dug into Disco Bear's stomach, ripping out lengths of intestines and organs. Stripes was able to knock the raccoon off but not before Disco Bear eyes became glassy and dull, he fell against the tree and died clutching the bleeding gap in his stomach. Shifty ran for the person closest to him: Samiee. The orange fox jumped to the left and sideswiped the raccoon, causing a gash to appear in Shifty's side. Shifty spun around and was nearly hit by a white laser beam.

"Hey! Watch where you're pointing that thing, Sniffles!" Stripes yelled as a tree not five inches away from her face turned to ash. She ducked under Lifty's outstretched claw and struck him in the stomach. Lifty doubled over and Cellia was able to freeze him on the spot with her ice breath. Shatter struck the raccoon at the base of his skull with the butt of her katana and Lifty broke into pieces, much as Evil had.

Meanwhile, Splendid had tried to grab Shifty but the raccoon evaded it, he did not, however, completely evade Samiee's katana, which cut his left arm completely off. Shifty roared at the pain and Muffin was able to jump on his back, tackling him to the ground. Sniffles then fired his gun once more at the raccoon, turning him into a pile of dark green ashes, with a few stolen gold coins in the mix and an untouched fedora resting in the pile. Stripes looked at the pile of Shifty's ashes with a depressed air, "Aw, man, Shifty didn't deserve that…I mean I couldn't care less about Lifty over here but Shifty..."

"Nine down, three to go." Cellia muttered, staring at the Lifty, water, blood mix.

"Who else could possibly have taken a cookie? The _one_ day nearly everyone in town visits my bakery and I'm off figuring out what's in a batch of poison cookies I left by the register out in the open! I'm such a failure…" Muffin sat down and leaned her head against the bakery door, tears threatening to fall. Sniffles walked over and sat down next to her, Muffin felt the tips of her ears grow warm again.

"It's not _completely _your fault." Sniffles said, smiling sheepishly. Oddly enough, this didn't make Muffin feel any better.

"Well, how about we try and hunt down the remaining three monsters. That will make things better." Samiee said hurriedly after noticing that Muffin was blushing at Sniffles. Muffin snapped back to reality and jumped to her feet.

"Right!" She said, "But who else could be a monster?

"Who else is a regular customer of yours?" Stripes asked.

"Well...I can't think of anyone off the top of my head that could have eaten a cookie…" Muffin mumbled, rubbing the back of her head. There was sudden, distant screaming coming from near the lake.

"Well, there's your answer!" Cellia exclaimed, "C'mon, I don't have all night!" She began running down the street, with the rest of the group following her.

Several minutes later, the group arrived at the still lake. There was nothing out of the ordinary, save for a lifeless body on the dock, dripping blood into the water, and square-like object near it. Shatter and Stripes were the first to cautiously approach the dock, and were followed by the rest of the team after giving the thumbs up sign.

The body was identified as Flaky. Her skull was crushed and nearly liquefied brain was oozing into the murky water. Her chest and stomach were impaled with several of her own quills. Sniffles shone a flashlight on the square figure and nearly fell backwards when he saw it was none other than Cro-Marmot. His ice cube was splattered with blood and gore and somehow, his wooden club was gone. He remained in that stationary position but his fingers had claws and his hair was slightly messed up. How he ate a cookie was beyond everyone, but a monster was a monster.

Cellia, refusing to be the executioner, handed her 0983 Melting Ray to Stripes, who accepted it with glee. The tiger aimed a careful shot at the frozen caveman, and fired. The ray was powerful enough to burn all the way through the ice barrier but Stripes had to fire another shot shortly after if Cro-Marmot was to have a slightly quicker death. Cro-Marmot died much quicker than Nutty had, as the beam hit the cave man dead center in the chest. Soon, all that remained was a pool of slightly bloodied water with a half melted skeleton. Shatter kicked the skeleton into the water.

Just split seconds later, Samiee, Stripes, and Splendid spun in place, readying their different weapons. Muffin, who was at the back of the group and at the beginning of the dock, was about to ask what was wrong when she felt a dull pain in the center of her chest. She glanced down and her pupils became tiny with horror as she watched the hooked hand pierce through her skin. Her vision became blurry as blood began seeping down the front of her shirt. She heard the faint growl of the monster Russell behind her as the hooked hand twisted, causing the wound to open wider. Muffin saw splotches of color on the edge of her vision and struggled violently to breathe but was only successful in painful, lurching spasms. Unbearable pain shot through her body and her vision went black. The last thing she heard was the shocked yells of her friends and Splendid.

The group stood astonished for a few moments, watching Muffin's eyes grow dull and small trickles of blood coming from her mouth.

"Well…" Shatter said simply as Russell yanked his bloody pirate's hook from Muffin's back and watching her fall to the ground, "Damn."

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**Ha ha! Lifty, Shifty, and Cro-Marmot are out of the count, Flaky and Disco Bear are epically dead, and Russell made a surprise appearance! What could possibly happen next? What do you think Muffin? ...Muffin?**

**Muffin: x_x **

**...Huh...didn't know it would affect the author's notes too... O_O **

**Reviews are greatly appreciated! :D **


	9. Epilogue

**Alright, last chapter! Thanks to all of you who have stuck with this till now. I'm currently in the process of moving so my progress on ETAC will slow down, sorry for any inconvenience. **

**Enjoy the last chapter of The Perfect Cookie!**

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Sniffles, Samiee, Stripes, Cellia, Shatter, and Splendid stared in shock as Muffin fell to the ground, bleeding heavily out of the gaping hole in her chest and her eyes growing wide and dull. It was obvious that Muffin was alive and twitching when she hit the ground, but that soon changed when blood began pooling out of her mouth. Russell's pirate hook had ripped her left lung and half the right lung to shreds. She had suffocated in her own blood.

The last thing Muffin heard before collapsing was a shocked yell from her friends and a growl from her attacker. Everything was black, and then a familiar white light blasted in front of her. It was brighter than anything you could possibly imagine, yet it did not blind her. The pain in Muffin's chest ceased and she was left to hover there in the empty, white plane. Muffin looked down and realized that her mauve shirt was missing, as was her cookie hair pin. She recalled what an old, blonde Labrador had told her when she left town last year for a baking competition. This white plane was called Purgatory, or something of the sort. A gap between her world and the next, she'd been here countless times before and knew what was coming. She spun around in place, but without any scenery, it was impossible to tell which way she was facing and was rather boring.

A flickering image passed before her and Muffin was forced to recall every memory of when she was born till this exact moment in perfect detail.

A good home, a mother and father who loved her.

Finding a book in the attic, turning immediately to the dessert section, that being where her love of baking started.

A life of competition baking. Nothing but quick pace and mistrust. Never having a chance to perfect each batch of goods, always trying to protect your recipes from dirty, rotten thieves much worse than the raccoon twins.

A betrayal of a friend, she was enraged. Muffin saw herself yelling at a faceless baker.

Through the grapevine, she heard of a town. Happy Tree Town, but the place was feared by the outside world, as it was cursed. Rumor had it that you died every day, horribly and painfully. Rumors that there was a green demon bear that disemboweled you, a blue demigod with a mask of blood, a psychotic orange beaver that chopped your arms off with carpenter tools, and a green squirrel that dug your eyes out with a spoon and ate them like candy. And crazy new residents, like a bloodthirsty orange tiger that choked you to death with a ranger hat, a demon possessed fox with different colored eyes that grew monster plants that ate children, a pink demigod that lurked in the shadows, killing anyone in the way, and a blue cat that slaughtered people in their sleep.

Muffin laughed as she saw these rumors fly by her face, of course they were completely false, well, she was at least positive that Samiee didn't have a garden of monster plants and that Stripes certainly didn't choke people to death with her hat, nor did Cellia kill people.

Her first day after moving to Happy Tree Town and a friendly anteater welcoming her.

She and the anteater became good friends. Muffin pretended not to see the scenes of self-conflict when confronted with a certain fact about her having a certain crush on said certain anteater.

All the deaths she had endured. Muffin laughed at a few, like the time she was pushed into her oven by Lumpy, and cringed at few, like the time she had her intestines ripped out by a bionic arm. Eventually, she got to the memory of Russell jabbing a hook through her chest and her vision went white once more. Muffin figured this was the point where someone outside of town would be sent to the afterlife. But instead, Muffin saw a glimpse of something gold, and like every time she saw it, she tried to grab it, but it disappeared before she got close and her surroundings turned black.

Muffin sat bolt upright in her bed. The curtains were drawn but it was obvious that it was light outside. She rubbed behind her left ear and stumbled out of bed. Making her way over to her bakery next-door, she looked around. Everyone was going about with their business as normal, without a care in the world. Muffin opened the bakery door and was greeted by the group of Cellia, Stripes, Sniffles, Samiee, Shatter, Splendid, and Flippy.

"Muffin! Took ya' long enough to regenerate!" Cellia exclaimed, clapping Muffin on the shoulder, almost making her knees buckle by her super strength.

"Hey guys." Muffin said, "What happened? Is everyone alright?"

"Well after you died, we had to fight Russell. I slashed him with my katana" Samiee said.

"Yeah, and I did an awesome back flip," Shatter said.

"And I zapped him with my Disintegrator." Sniffles said.

"But not before I beat the crap out of him." Stripes said.

Muffin smiled, "Splendid killed him with his heat vision, didn't he?"

"…Yeah." Samiee said, looking at his feet. Muffin chuckled. "Wait!" She exclaimed, counting on her fingers, "We only killed eleven monsters! What happened to the twelfth one?"

Stripes shrugged, "We don't know, everyone is town is accounted for and there were no more monsters after Russell, we figured that the cookie was destroyed somehow."

"Well, I'm really sorry everyone, I shouldn't have made you all deal with this…" Muffin said.

"Hey, I don't know about these guys but I had fun." Shatter said, sneaking a sugar cookie off of a shelf.

"Although Evil is pretty pissed about me eating that cookie," Flippy said, "He swore he'd kill you, Muffin, so watch out." Muffin wasn't at all phased by this, as Evil had threatened her and killed her plenty of times. She just hoped _Stripes_ didn't have a grudge against her after all this.

None of the monsters knew what had happened, save for Samiee and Flippy, Stripes just couldn't resist telling him all about how Splendid and she had killed Evil. The twelfth cookie was never found and Muffin was convinced it was lost in the confusion.

Despite Muffin's protests, Stripes had her put in jail for three days (which is better than the three _months_ the tiger originally wanted) for allegedly poisoning baked goods. The cookie incident didn't harm Muffin's stream of customers into her bakery and the store prospered once more. Sniffles made sure that PROJECT 00733 was destroyed safely. Splendid was back on Muffin's bad side in a matter of days after once again blasting a hole in the bakery roof, although the maroon fox noticed that he and Stripes were hanging out more often. Komei launched a full investigation on what happened after she ate a cookie, but Muffin had hidden the evidence well. Lifty and Shifty went back to their thieving ways and it wasn't long before Samiee was chasing them around town in an attempt to get his katana back. Shatter was around more frequently and occasionally bought something from Muffin. Cellia returned to aiding her cousin in saving the townspeople and threw away her laser gun the first chance she got.

Muffin sighed as she sat down at her register, thinking about the past week, she figured a perfect cookie could not possibly exist…until she created it that is. But she had no more interest in this and set about making a batch of peanut butter cookies. She'd create a perfect cookie in due time.

A yellow monkey dressed in holy red robes sat crossed legged in front of a monastery shrine, concentrating on his meditation. The garden he sat in was ninja-free and quite peaceful. He suddenly snapped out of his trance at the presence of another living being. He looked up to see a familiar carrier pigeon. The bird landed somewhat-gracefully on his forearm and the saint carefully untied the package it carried, fed it some grain, and watched it fly away. He opened the letter attached to a poorly wrapped brown parcel.

_ Buddhist Monkey,_

_The baker in Happy Tree Town, a good friend of mine also, had free samples of her new cookies. I thought I'd send you one as I know you have a bit of a sweet tooth and her cookies are always delicious (except the walnut pecan ones, I'm not very fond of those). Enjoy._

_Your friend,_

_Mime _

Buddhist Monkey smiled at the letter, he remembered the purple deer from his past and had thought he'd forgotten about the monastery, but apparently not. The monkey carefully unwrapped the parcel and looked curiously at the glowing blue cookie before him. It was true he had a sweet tooth and had never tried cookies from this Happy Tree Town baker, but what harm could be done? He took a small bite.

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**And so ends an adventure of epic proportions! The location of the last cookie was revealed, Muffin entered and left purgatory, Stripes got to send someone to jail, and I left you all off at a cliff hanger -troll face- U mad? **

**Muffin: Yes, I'm mad! Splendid crashed into my bakery and destroyed the perfect cookie recipe! I have to start from scratch!**

**It's for the better, trust me.**

**Muffin: Reviews are greatly appreciated! **


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